Wen 丨 Yu Pengyuan
In 1906, Tetsuhito Uno (1875-1974), a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, came to Changsha. Changsha in the late Qing Dynasty, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was a period when the stars could be picked by hand. Under the guidance of a local Japanese, Miyamura Kowa, Uno visited Ye Dehui (1864-1927), who was storing a book in Hongjiajing.
Ye Dehui, Zi Xiangbin, Zhishan, alias Haoyuan, Jing version, Gong Primary School, Rich Collection, and his people are erudite and versatile. "Zhen Wei's extensive exposition, solitude and refinement, the compilation of poor crowds, disciples and outsiders, there is no Mr. Ruo", Li Xiaoyan, a well-known scholar in modern times, commented on Ye Dehui.
(Photo by Ye Dehui)
The so-called "disciples and outsiders" are not false words. At that time, Ye Dehui's disciples, from Europe and the United States to the East, such as the German consul in Changsha Mai Linghao, the British Ren Xiuben, the British consul in Changsha Zhai Binan, the Japanese Shioya Wen, Matsuzaki Tsuruo, and so on, all studied under The Garden. Having such a reputation overseas naturally attracts Tetsuya Uno who come to China to study.
Cultural celebrities did not disappoint the visitors, and Uno Tetsujin recalled Ye Dehui in his "Record of Chinese Civilization": "At the request of the invitation, take out the treasured books, calligraphy and paintings and ancient money to show that all of them are treasures under the world." There are so many items that there are few time for greetings and socializing. According to the records of the "Record of Civilization", the items presented by Ye Dehui include the Tang Dynasty's "Treatise on Abhidharma Da Pi Po Sha", the Southern Song Dynasty Daoist Ge Changgeng's handwritten "Moral Treasure Chapter", the Song edition of "Yutai Xin yong", "Wei Suzhou Collection", "The Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty", and so on.
(Tetsuto Uno, Chinese Civilization)
Among the rare books displayed this time, the "Wei Suzhou Collection" is particularly worth mentioning. Ye Dehui informed the guests that this book is an unusually rare Northern Song Dynasty clay movable type engraving. After watching it carefully, Uno thought that "the ink color is like lacquer, which can be described as the best in the world." Ye Dehui himself was also very proud of this collection, saying in his book "Reading History of The Garden" that at that time, the bibliophiles in Hainei, such as the Haiyuan Pavilion of the Yang Clan in Shandong, the Iron Qin Bronze Sword Building of the Qu Clan in Changshu, the Song Lou of the Lu Clan of Zhejiang, and the Jing Zhai of the Fengshun Ding Clan, did not have such a Song benefactory, so "it was not only the first in the Northern Song Dynasty, but also the first in the Collection of Books in the Sea". The color of pride, flowing between the lines, overflows beyond the pages. In the "Reading Chronicle of The Garden", Ye Dehui did not forget to show off his skills, saying that "there were also such movable type books in the Ming Dynasty, but paper and ink were far from catching each other, and it was known at a glance that it was not song yinyun." I remember that when I read this passage before, on the one hand, I admired Ye's exquisite collection, and on the other hand, I also admired his "fire-eyed golden eye" who "knew what was wrong at a glance".
Unfortunately, after Ye Dehui's death in 1927, his collection for many years was also scattered like a star (about Ye Dehui's death, the local scholar Tan Boniu has a "Death of Ye Dehui" can be read), some books were collected in a book store in Beiping, and later purchased by scholars in Yu Province; some books were sold by Ye Houren to the Japanese bookseller Yamamoto; some sporadically went to used bookstores; and some were collected by the then provincial Zhongshan Library (now Hunan Library). So where did Ye's conceited collection "Wei Suzhou Collection" go?
The book was later purchased by Zhou Yueran, a bibliophile in Wuxing, Zhejiang Province, in 1916 at the Chuanpai Bookstore in Shanghai. However, according to Zhou Yueran's careful review, it is believed that Ye's so-called "Song Dynasty clay engraving" is actually a movable type book of the early Ming Dynasty. Zhou even wrote in the article "Three Lives in the Early Ming Dynasty" that "the first leaf of the volume has Ye Dehui's hand, calling this the Northern Song Dynasty clay movable type book, which is also wrong." Reading this text, in the past, my people's worship of the Version of The Garden was shaken again, after all, this was the most proud collection of Ye Dehui's "Guan Gu Tang", and it would even look away. Of course, the book is so well printed that Yang Jun, Yang Du's younger brother Yang Jun, read the book and thought it was "ancient and interesting".
Huang Pei, a close friend, also categorically judged Ye Dehui to Berhaven wrong for Zhou Yueran, and vaguely expressed his dissent, thinking that it may be that there are inscriptions of the Ming Dynasty and other mistakes, not necessarily Ming Dynasty books, but because Huang Yue has not seen the original book, it is not easy to judge. However, the relative empirical evidence of the misjudgment of the elderly in The Garden is the research of the modern scholar Li Qing. Like Huang Bao, Li Qing could not see Ye Dehui's original collection of books, but he had to see Yi Peiji's "Wei Collection" engraved by Yu Huai, a Ming Dynasty scholar who had proofread ye Dehui's collection, and carefully compared them with the so-called Northern Song Dynasty clay movable type book compilation, poetry collection, volume division, engraving words, avoidance of secrecy, and layout line, and Li Qing found that they were all identical to the Ming Dynasty copper movable type, so he judged that Ye's so-called "Northern Song Clay Movable Type" was actually a Ming copper movable type. Li Qing has a very in-depth study of various versions of the Wei Suzhou Collection, and there is a special article on the "Source Flow Examination of the Wei Suzhou Collection Version".
(Zhou Yueran, a bibliophile in Wuxing, Zhejiang)
In Zhou Yueran's "Discussion on the Ancient Books of Yan Yan Zhai", there is also a text of the "Wei Suzhou Collection", revealing an unpublished inscription of the "Reading History of The Garden". From this inscription, it can be seen that Ye Jiuzang's "Wei Suzhou Collection" was originally the old collection of Xiangtan bibliophile Yuan Fangying Woxuelu, and the cover had the thirteen characters of "Wei Suzhou Collection, Northern Song Dynasty Clay Movable Type Book" by the owner of Woxuelu. It turns out that Ye Haoyuan's so-called "one look and know" fire-eyed golden eye is still based on the inscription of predecessors on the cover, rather than relying on personal judgment. It is no wonder that he did not publish the inscription in a public book.
It also reminds me of an anecdote by Conan Doyle, author of The Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection. Once doyle was riding a taxi in Paris, he got off the train, threw his travel bag into the car, and got on the train. Before he could speak, the driver asked, "Mr. Conan Doyle, where are you going?" Conan Doyle was surprised, "You know me?" "The other side said no." So how do you know I'm Conan Doyle? The driver said: "In the newspapers I heard that you were on vacation in the south of France, watched you get off the train coming from Marseille, and noticed that you were dark-skinned and should come in full sunlight. And you have ink marks on the fingers of your right hand, presumably a writer. Plus, you're dressed in British style and have the keen eye of a surgeon. ”
Doyle cried out in admiration, saying that the other party was simply the Holmes of life. At this time, the driver of the car said unhurriedly: "There is also a small fact, the travel bag has your name written on it." ”
(Conan Doyle, Author of The Sherlock Holmes Detective Series)
[Editor-in-charge: Li Tingting]
[Source: Hunan Daily· New Hunan Client]